After Italian authorities gave the green light to next year’s Budget Law at the end of last month, many homeowners carrying out renovations didn’t get the news they were hoping for.

The plans aren’t favourable for those with single family homes, as Italy decided to extend the superbonus only for condominiums until 2023, meaning there isn’t as much time to move through construction projects.

EXPLAINED: How Italy’s proposed new budget could affect you

As things stand, based on the manovra – or financial measures – set out by the government, there are just eight months left to access the superbonus for those with a single family home.

It spells a timeframe potentially too short for many waiting for their building project to get off the ground or those stuck in a backlog caused by high demand for construction companies.

‘No house and all the bills’

Many homeowners have already successfully accessed the bonus, with the government approving over 9 billion euros of investments.

But we count among those waiting tensely for news. Solely on the basis of the superbonus, my husband and I bought a wreck in the northern region of Emilia Romagna in May.

After months of searching and waiting for the sale to go through, once we finally had the deed in our hands we thought we’d be able to move through the process and start on the demolition and build of our new home.

Yet, seven months later, the original and unliveable old farmhouse is still standing in its crumbling glory while we grow ever more anxious for works to start – and potentially finish – in time.

For us, this would be our primary residence, our only home. We have both borrowed money and also sunk every penny we’ve ever had to our names and saved up over the years to afford it.

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The superbonus was an opportunity too good to miss, as we would never have been able to undertake a project like this without it.

But if we are left stranded halfway through, we will be left with an old building not fit to live in and nowhere else to call home as we have sold our current apartment – at a loss too.

Soon enough, we’ll be living in a trailer on site and all we can do is cross our fingers that we’ll have a real roof over our heads soon.

We’re not the only ones fast in the superbonus quagmire. Paul Bains who lives in Sicily almost embarked on the same idea – a full demolition and rebuild – on the house where he resides, but he was worried that it would be “a disaster” and scrapped the plan.

Echoing our fears, he said, “We would have run out of time and I would have ended up with no house and all the bills.”

A shortage of building professionals

Paul still wanted to access the government coffers to upgrade his property without knocking it down in any case. After initially discussing ideas in September and October 2020, an architect eventually came to visit his home in January 2021 to make assessments.

Months passed and on asking for progress, Paul was told that they’ll need another architect after being unable to reach the first one.

READ ALSO: Italy’s ‘superbonus’ renovations delayed by builder shortages and bureaucracy

By July, the builder he had been liaising with also “disappeared”.

He said that he feels like he has lost a year by waiting and asking around for other contacts, but so far is stuck and unable to move forward.

“In some ways I’m just resigned to it,” he said, nodding to the culture of bureaucracy which he described as slow in rural Sicily.

“In some ways I just accept it as perhaps a good thing and move on,” he added.

Using the superbonus on a second home

Not everyone is experiencing the same frustration and worry.

Roger Hampton is a British citizen living in Norway and his renovation project is underway on a second home in Italy.

He and his family found the holiday home of their dreams in Ancona, in the Marche region.

Despite breaking one of the biggest rules of house buying in Italy – buying the property unseen – they are successfully progressing through their building plans, blogging the developments as they go.

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“I first read about the superbonus when it came out and then changed my property search, as I realised there was more we could do than we could initially afford,” he said.

“Without the superbonus we couldn’t have done this,” he added.

Due to the various lockdowns, he couldn’t travel from Norway to view properties, so his engineer did it on his behalf and just sent photos and videos. It worked out and now they are embarking on a full demolition and rebuild in the end, as the foundations were too weak to stay in place.

Despite only having visited Italy twice this year, his second home project is moving at a pace.

As an architect by trade, Roger admitted he found the process less stressful than most as he understood a lot of the jargon and the protocol. Regardless, accessing the bonus and progressing through construction from a distance is an achievement.

He met a technician last September who used his contacts to get the appropriate contractors for construction.

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For us, this is currently the greatest stumbling block as there’s high demand for thermal technicians (termotecnici) and we cannot move forward without this key contact.

In fact, we have found a construction company to knock down the wreck and build our new home, but without the final approval from technicians, we are at an impasse.

Other home renovators I spoke to said they are having the same issues with appointing these particular professionals.

Soberingly, one told me that it took a year to start works after buying the property. In our case, that would definitely be too late to claim the superbonus under the current rules.

One reader of The Local contacted us to say that they also had this experience, saying, “Getting knowledgeable professionals has been a real struggle.”

In their case, they are moving within the same comune (municipality) and it will be their primary residence. They actually didn’t intend to use the superbonus initially, as they began their project before it was introduced.

However, due to the difficulties of finding the right professionals, time has rolled on and they can now benefit from more government aid than they originally thought.

“The whole thing has been hard but we stand to gain so much if it works out for us, it’s well worth it,” they said.

It’s a positive sentiment that Roger expressed too. “It’s a case of having the patience and it’ll work out,” he said.

For those who are jittery and restless, they might not be far off the mark with such optimism.

The budget proposals indicated a change in the superbonus to cover only those single family homeowners with an ISEE (the social-economic indicator of household wealth) of 25,000 euros maximum for the whole of 2022.

If you don’t fall into this category, the deadline of June 30th 2022 applies.

READ ALSO: Building superbonus: Italy’s draft budget leaves homeowners in limbo

However, some respite is still possible as the Budget Law has not yet been examined by parliament and has so far not been made into law.

At this point, amendments are being made and pressure is mounting to remove the income ceiling and to scrap the shorter deadline for single family homes.

“We are fine-tuning amendments to remove references to ISEE ceilings as a requirement for continuing to benefit from the superbonus on single- and multi-family houses,” Agostino Santillo, vice-president of the Five Star Movement party is reported to have said in a Senate meeting.

He criticised the measure as “discrimination”, saying his party have “put an alternative option on the table that does not create obstacles”.

The government launched the so-called ‘superbonus 110‘ back in May 2020, one of a raft of measures aimed at boosting the Covid-hit economy. It offers homeowners large tax deductions on expenses related to energy upgrades and reducing seismic risk.

Property owners have been petitioning to extend the bonus for the same amount as planned for condominiums, with some arguing that those with single or multi family homes shouldn’t be excluded or labelled “houses of the rich”.

Reports suggest that news on who can access the superbonus and for how long are expected this week.

All proposed measures and extensions to come into force from next year are yet to be converted into law and are still subject to change.

See more in The Local’s Italian property section.